Google IP Geolocation

Google just published new AJAX API function ClientLocation for IP Geolocation.

This way you receive an JavaScript object with latitude and longitude and with address (city, region, country and country code) of your visitor.

It is cool and practical for use even without displaying Google Maps, as you can change behavior of your website according location of the visitor.

I wrote a typical example application Google IP Geolocation Map and Address which you can just copy and paste.



What IP database is Google practically using? Anybody knows? Is it their private or they are licensing one from another company?

Is the quality of IP geolocation better then free GeoLite City from MaxMind?

GDAL2Tiles Google Zurich Office Presentation

I visited Google Zurich Office and made there a presentation about my Google Summer of Code project GDAL2Tiles during the Google Open Source Jam Session.

It was an excellent opportunity to meet some of the Google Engineers personally, discuss with them the Google technology and also to see the Google Zurich Office. All the presentations of other SoC projects and talking with authors was also cool.

I presented a poster (PDF 15 Mb) and had a short talk about my project. You can have a look at slideshow with 3D animations of maps from GDAL2Tiles on YouTube.

Update:

You can also have a look at a report from OpenSource Jam on Google Open-Source Blog.

iPhone Touch API ... a way for OpenLayers

It seems that with Apple's web Touch API it is possible to create a website, which will behave same way as iPhone build in Google Maps application. You can react by Javascript on all touch events, so implement zooming by pinching for example, or flicking to another page etc..

This functionality would be really cool in the OpenLayers open-source project 

For more info about the possibilities have a look at very nice description and example application of the Apple Touch API.